


The One Where Brian Talks About Relationships

by LaVieEnRose



Series: The One Where Justin Loses His Hearing [11]
Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Deaf Character, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 13:45:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15220424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaVieEnRose/pseuds/LaVieEnRose
Summary: "Why does everyone think they deserve their own personal fucking confession about how I feel about Justin? Who the fuck are we saying needs that in this equation? I don't need it. Justin doesn't need it. It's for you. You need it. And just fucking spare me. You want security, reassurance, sappy little platitudes? Get them from your own relationship, not mine."





	The One Where Brian Talks About Relationships

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little one scene thing. Eventually I'll get them to New York, I swear...

The boys had all done shifts at the loft helping Brian and Justin pack for their big move, and all of them came out whining like little bitches about how hard it was. So much heavy lifting! Brian is so demanding! They don't even have any food! It just goes to show you: don't send a boy to do a broad's work. And especially don't tell her they don't have any food. If you think I wasn't going to march over there at noon on Sunday with my biggest dish of tuna noodle casserole, you are fucked in the head.

Brian swung open the loft door and gave me that characteristic squint. Twenty-three years I've known this asshole, and he still looks at me like he doesn't know who the fuck I am. “Michael, I see you've made some changes,” he said.

I shoved the dish at him. “I took his shift. Three-seventy-five for twenty-five minutes. Don't burn it.”

He rolled his eyes and headed towards the kitchen. “I can count to twenty-five, thanks. Why, just last week at Babylon—” 

“Yeah, yeah, give it a rest.” I closed the door behind me and looked around the loft. “Where's Sunshine?”

Brian lit a cigarette and gestured towards the bedroom. There was Justin, curled up asleep on top of the covers. And not naked, which was really the big surprise, even bigger than still being asleep at noon. Even when he was a teenager living in my house he never slept in on weekends. “Too much to do!” he'd shout, and babble on and on about seeing Daphne, and getting a head start on a project, and going to an exhibit at the museum, and Brian, Brian, Brian.

God, I missed that.

“Is he not feeling well?” I said, lowering my voice, and Brian just shrugged. “I can come back later...”

He raised an eyebrow. “What, are you afraid you're going to wake him? HEY, SUNSHINE!” he yelled, so loud it strained the muscles in his neck, and when Justin didn't so much as stir, he raised his arms like _ta da._

“Ha. Guess not.”

“You get used to it,” Brian said.

“Well, maybe not if you're leaving.” 

Brian took a long drag on his cigarette, and I thought he wasn't going to say anything, in his typical Brian fashion, but then he let it hang from his lips and said, “You had two years.”

Well, how do you fucking respond to that? “I know,” I said, softly.

He stared me down. 

I cleared my throat and looked away. “What do you need help with?”

He sighed and stubbed out the cigarette. “You can help pack up Justin's canvases. You have to do it a certain way. I'll show you.”

“Thanks.”

I went over to the canvases leaning against the wall by Justin's desk, and Brian put the casserole in the oven and turned on some music and came and joined me. He showed me the proper procedure, how to handle and wrap them so they didn't get damaged. “You gotta be careful,” he said. “If anything happens to them it'll be my ass.”

I snorted. “I'm sure that's a big weight on your mind.”

Brian grinned lazily and studied one of the canvases. “You have no idea how big.”

“That one's beautiful,” I said. “I mean, they're all beautiful.”

He nodded, still looking at it. After a minute, he said, “The first time I saw one of his drawings...I mean, he'd babbled at me already that he wanted to be an artist. I think he told me his whole life story by the time I'd fucked him three times. Goddamn, that kid doesn't shut up.”

Didn't _used_ to shut up, I thought, but I didn't correct him.

“But then one time he stayed over...I don't remember what had happened, something with Jennifer. I made him sleep on the couch.” He chuckled. “And I guess he couldn't sleep, 'cause in the morning I found this little sketch on the coffee table, just this drawing of the view from the window...this tiny little thing, and I realized he was actually _good._ I don't think I'd even considered that he might have been. Just assumed he was full of shit. First of many surprises,” he added quietly, a little darkly.

“I still find them at my house,” I said. “I was cleaning Mikey's room the other day and I found a whole series of _Brian in repose_ under the bed.”

He laughed a little.

“Y'know, I've always been surprised about how supportive you've been,” I said. “I would have thought you'd be first in line trying to push him to go to business school.”

“Why should I have given a shit where he went to school?” Brian said, fooling absolutely no one. “I barely knew the kid then.” 

I gave him a look. “I guess everyone's still surprised that Brian Kinney has a soul, huh?”

“Mmm,” he said.

“You still think you're James fucking Dean,” I said. “Rebel without a cause. You think everyone doesn't see you found your cause a long time ago.”

Brian carefully wrapped the canvas. “I don't care,” he said.

“Sure you don't.”

“No,” he said. “I don't. Jesus Christ, I didn't say I wouldn't care if he tried to fucking go to business school _now._ ”

“You cared then.”

“Maybe I did,” he said. “So?”

“So it's just nice to hear you fucking say it sometimes,”

He rolled his eyes. “You'd think because I'm not writing poems for him and running them in the Post-Gazette that I'm still fucking oblivious to what's going on or trying to pull one over on everyone. Why does everyone think they deserve their own personal fucking confession about how I feel about Justin? Just because Michael won't shut the fuck up to anyone who breathes near him about his _undying love for his partner_ doesn't mean...I mean, who the fuck are we saying needs that in this equation? I don't need it. Justin doesn't need it. It's for you. You need it. And just fucking spare me. You want security, reassurance, sappy little platitudes? Get them from your own relationship, not mine.”

“Everyone just loves you, you know,” I said. “And we want you to be happy.”

“Well, I'm not a skipping-through-the-daisies type of fag,” Brian said. “You're just gonna have to trust me.”

“Trust what? You don't give us anything.”

“It's not _fucking_ yours!” he said. 

I fixed him with a look. “Sunshine needed more than you gave him for a long time, and don't you dare sit there and pretend otherwise.”

“Okay, well, if the little pup starts coming to you telling you he's unhappy, by all means send up some smoke signals. Until then—” 

“He wouldn't come to us,” I said.

Brian clucked his tongue. “I wonder why.”

“Don't get smart with me, you little asshole. Justin would never say a bad word about you to anyone and you know it.”

He shook his head. “That's not why.” 

“We once watched him suffer and didn't say anything for too long. And now—”

“And now you don't know what's going on with him, so you're worried the same shit is going down.” Brian put the canvas down and sat on the floor, legs crossed, eyes fixed on me. “Well then, by all means, let me explain. Justin needed more than I gave him for a long time because he had fucking PTSD and didn't understand non-verbal cues the way he used to, and yeah, it took me too long to realize the things that worked on him before he took a bat to the head weren't working for him like they used to, and yeah, I was a fucking idiot to think all I needed to do was sit down with a psychiatrist once and all of a sudden I'd know what he needed. It was a communication issue. And you want to know what's going on now? A communication issue. Between _you all_ and him. Not him and me. We are Brian and Justin against the whoooole goddamn world, and you think it's a problem because you don't understand it, because you _never fucking bothered to learn to talk to him._ ”

“We sign with him,” I said.

“Bullshit. Bullshit! You sign out a few shitty sentences and learn how to tell him to pour another cup of coffee and think that means you deserve access to his thoughts? What's he going to do, fingerspell out a monologue for you while you stare at him trying to solve him like a puzzle? Yeah, he feels really welcome to open up to you. And you have the goddamn audacity to think you have some sort of right to have _concerns_ about us because you can't figure him out like when he spoke your language for you? Bullshit. I had to throw him a second fucking Christmas party because I knew he was going to be so goddamn devastated by yours, did you know that? I had fucking tinsel in my goddamn loft because of you shitty hearing people. And nice fucking tree, by the way. If you don't remember what he's allergic to you can fucking ask him. Might have to learn a few new signs for it, though. Sorry, I know that's inconvenient.” He got off the floor and started walking away from me.

“You know, you have a lot of fucking nerve,” I said.

He whirled around. “I do? _I do?_ ”

“Do you have any idea what's going on outside your four fucking walls?” I asked him. “Did you know Drew's getting sued for violating some fucking morality cause in his contract? Do you know Hunter got fucking arrested last weekend for disorderly conduct, and Michael and Ben are trying to figure out if they need to pull him out of school and send him to fucking rehab? You know Carl saw two kids get fucking shot in front of his eyes last month and now he doesn't sleep? Or that we lost Kiki and Justin in the same fucking week at the diner and I've been pulling triple shifts? Lindsay got fired? Any of this ringing a fucking bell, Brian?” 

He didn't say anything.

“We have our own shit,” I said. “We have lives. And we want to talk to Justin with everything in our goddamn hearts, but it is not easy, so don't you fucking stand there sneering at me like this is a matter of us deciding not to go to a class once a week. You fucking know that's not how this works.”

“I fucking work my ass off to learn this language,” he said. “Carl hasn't slept for a month? I've been running a company and learning a new language and taking care of a sick kid, I haven't slept in a _year._ I put aside _everything._ And nobody else will.”

“He's your fucking partner!” I yelled at him. “You're supposed to work harder than everyone else. That's how it goddamn works, you stupid asshole!”

He sat down on the couch with a huff. I stood over him, arms crossed.

I said, “You think that if everyone else works as hard as you do, that, what, it'll make you learning a new language for him, giving him everything he needs, less of...what, a marriage? You're not breaking your little rules, you're not sacrificing for love, if everybody else is doing it too, is that it?”

He glared at me.

“I got news for you, you miserable son of a bitch,” I told him. “You're doing love the same way all of the rest of us sorry slobs do it. You haven't discovered something new and bigger and better than us. You just do the same shit the rest of us do, but with a fucking attitude.”

“You all make him feel like shit,” he said. “You make him feel guilty when he doesn't show up at the diner or at your little family dinners. Do you not get that he can't fucking keep up? That he's overwhelmed and embarrassed the whole time, and I can't interpret for ten people at once?”

“We just want to see him,” I said. “We don't have any expectations of him.”

“So once again, it's about you,” Brian said. “It's about you getting to see him, like he's a fucking zoo exhibit. He doesn't want to be fucking seen all the time. Christ, it's hard enough getting him to want to be seen ever.”

I shook my head slowly.

“What?” he said. “Fucking what?”

“Don't you get tired?” I said.

He scoffed.

“Of being so fucking angry all the time,” I said. “Of fighting everyone who isn't treating him exactly the way you think that they should. Following your little Brian Kinney manual for Justin. Because I know he's not asking you to do this. This shit, this isn't Sunshine.”

“No, just fucking accepting it all and internalizing it and letting people walk all over him, that's Sunshine. So I have to do this, because none of you will fucking pay attention to how fucking miserable he is around you.”

“Now who's not picking up non-verbal cues,” I couldn't help but say, and he laughed a little and looked away.

“Of course I'm tired,” he said eventually. “I'm out of my fucking mind worrying about him, I can't use my fucking first language half the time, I have to learn all these new fucking rules about a new culture and....yes, I'm fucking tired. Okay? Are you happy now? Feel vindicated that I've admitted there's nothing fucking easy about living with this? What the fuck good does this do? He's not going to not be Deaf, I don't even want him to not be Deaf, and I'm not going to leave him, so what's the point of sitting around bitching about shit?”

I sat next to him on the couch. “Fuck if I know,” I said. “They say it helps.”

He rolled his eyes and loosened up a little. “They say all kinds of things. They said Justin's condition wouldn't cause him any physical symptoms outside the Deafness, and look at him. He still can't get out of bed some days. Nobody knows shit.” 

“What's he going to do in New York?” 

“Presumably we'll have a bed in New York.”

“I wish we'd worked harder,” I said. “I wish I'd worked harder. I thought we'd have more time.”

“He's not dying,” Brian said. “I'm sure you'll be gracing us with your presence soon enough.”

“I have always wanted to see the Statue of Liberty,” I said. “And go to the top of the Empire State Building. And see Times Square!”

“I changed my mind,” Brian said.

“Oh, fuck you.” I reached a hand up and rubbed the back of his head, and we were quiet for a little. Eventually I said, “I think...I think we all just kept thinking about when he was bashed.”

“Really,” Brain said dryly. “What's that like?”

I ignored him. “Sitting in that hospital waiting room, waiting for any fucking news they would give us, not knowing if he was gonna be himself when he woke up or if he was going to wake up at all—” 

“This is really fun,” Brian said. “Can we go over some of my fights with my father next? Or maybe recount when I found out I had testicular cancer? Justin had a seizure three weeks go, should we make this a series?”

I looked at him. “Justin had a seizure?”

Brian shrugged. “He has a lot of seizures. This one was bad.” He nodded up at the bedroom. “His doctor has him on these new meds and they're making him feel like shit. That's why he's sleeping.”

“Is that related to—” 

“To what, him getting bashed in the head or him losing his hearing?” He lit another cigarette. “Definitely the first one. They don't really know about the second. Do you know how much doctors just don't fucking know?” He waved his hand carelessly. “I guess you would. Sitting in the waiting room, waiting for any fucking news they would give us, right?” 

I gave him a minute, then said, “When you told us about this thing with his hearing...I was just so fucking grateful he wasn't fucking dying again. That we weren't all going to be crowded around a hospital for weeks at a time.”

Brian nodded a little. 

“I think...I think maybe we were all so happy that he was going to live that we didn't want to think about...how much more he was going to need.”

“He doesn't need anything from you,” Brian said automatically, and you could have seen that one from a thousand paces, right? “If he doesn't get it from you he'll get it from someone else, whatever.”

“What about you?” I said.

He took a drag. “He can get everything I give him from someone else too, if he wants.”

“What about what you need, baby?”

He groaned. “Are people really under the impression that I need some sort of rescuing? Justin loses his hearing, and so I decide to...what, stay with him out of obligation? I swear, sometimes I think you all make up different people to be in this relationship so it will be more interesting to you. We aren't throwing things and sobbing when you all aren't around, you know? We're fucking and watching Survivor like every other sad sack out there, whatever it was you said. And when have I fucking ever done something I don't want to do?”

“I seem to recall something about being fucking tired worrying about him, learning a new language...”

“I want to do it!” he said, throwing his arms up. “I'm just fucking tired! People get tired! It doesn't require a fucking inquisition.”

“Intervention.”

“Whatever the fuck. Look, I appreciate the concern, but if you think Justin is my fucking charity case now because he's Deaf, you're welcome to visit sometime after dark and see how I treat my poor little ward. I'm pretty sure fucking him until he loses his voice isn't some volunteer work I'm doing to help the handicapped.”

“I think you're supposed to say disabled.”

“Don't fucking tell me you're supposed to say disabled, you think I don't know?” He sucked on his cigarette. “We're _fine._ Can people just fucking let us be fine?”

“You know, you're not gonna have a support system out there in New York. Not right away, anyway. And I know he's been depressed lately and don't you give me some kind of face about it. I'm not an idiot.”

“He has a referral for a therapist in New York,” Brian said, and I won't pretend I wasn't fucking surprised that he just came out and said it like that, and without any kind of glare. “He's working on it. Anyone would be having a rough year after the shit he's been through.” He tightened his jaw. “It's not about me,” he said, too firmly.

I took his hand. “I know it's not, Brian.”

He dropped his head onto my shoulder and said, quietly, “It's just nobody's fucking business how much I love him.”

I tried to hide my smile. “No,” I said. “You're right. You little shit.” 

He sat up and rubbed his face with both hands. “Remember before when I was listing things that are exhausting? You. You are exhausting.”

“Yeah, cry me a river.” 

“He misses you,” Brian said. “He misses talking to you.” He paused, then added, quietly, “Don't you miss him?”

I felt tears in the back of my throat, just like that. “Jesus, Brian, of course.”

“That was all it took for me,” Brian said. “If you'd asked me I would have said I'd do anything to just make him fucking shut up for once, make him stop fucking nagging me to talk to him, and then we're sitting in that doctor's office and the thought of not being able to talk to him made me want to jump off a fucking bridge, and...and that was it, I was all in.” He shook his head. “That's irony or whatever, right? He has trouble with the non-verbal cues, so I learn to fucking talk to him every once in a while without wanting to slit my wrists, we're peddling along okay, and then...So no. No, I don't get it. I don't get that why that wasn't enough for everyone else to put aside fucking...anything else in the world and do what they needed to do for him. Fuck Hunter being a jackass, fuck Lindsay's job. I don't understand why he comes first for me and not them. ” 

“That's because you're a fucking moron,” I said.

He shrugged. “Maybe.” 

“You are going to spend your whole life wondering why the world isn't kinder to him,” I said. “That's what love is.”

“Well, Jesus Christ, why are people falling over themselves to do this shit? Christ, I oughta be committed.” He sighed. “I hate that he lost you. I hate that he lost all of you. I hate that he lost anything. I kept telling him when he got sick, we're going to make it work, we're going to keep your old life. God, what bullshit. And thank God it was, but...what a load of bullshit.” 

I cleared my throat and said, “Well, you said it yourself. It's just a plane ride away. We've got all the time in the world to get better, get back to him. Family doesn't need blood, Brian, you know that. It doesn't need a zip code, either.” I pinched his cheek.

“You know, none of this is helping us get packed,” he said. “And that monstrosity you brought over is going to be ready any minute now.” He paused and cocked his head towards the bedroom. “He's awake.”

I craned my neck. “You can see him?”

“No, I just...” He shrugged. “He'll be up in a minute.”

Sure enough, a moment later Justin came padding down the stairs, looking sleepy and fucking adorable in oversized sweats. Brian held out his arms as he got closer and Justin fit himself into them, Brian's face against his chest. He reached up to paw at Justin's forehead, then smiled a little, his eyes closed, and breathed Justin in like a drug. Justin pet his hair. 

**Hi, Sunshine** I said to him, and he smiled at me. 

“I saw you did the canvases,” he said. “Brian, did you show her how—” 

Brian signed something quickly, his eyes still closed.

“You are such a jerk,” Justin said. Brian smiled and squeezed him and kissed his belly.

Just then the timer on the oven went off, and I got up to take out the casserole. I served up portions for me and Brian, and a massive one for Justin—that kid was skin and bones lately—and set them on the counter.

Over on the couch, the two of them were twisted up in each other's arms, somehow still managing to sign so fast to each other that I couldn't pick out a single word. Justin batted Brian's hand away at one point, and Brian grabbed one of his and kissed it, and Justin signed something against Brian's chest and Brian something against his cheek. 

And it occurred to me that I'd been very, very wrong earlier when I thought Justin wasn't a chatterbox anymore.

Gimme a break. Even Wonder Woman misses a call every once in a while.

Brian signed something to Justin and squeezed him around the waist, and Justin threw his head back and laughed. The sound filled the whole loft.


End file.
